Thursday, October 21, 2010

Friday, October 15, 2010

Saturday, October 2, 2010

A few years ago Kris blogged about the Portsmouth Gas Light Co. You can read the review here, but basically it stated that the Gas Light has some incredible pizza. It was so good: wood fired, crispy, almost charred crust, the sauce tasted of fresh tomatoes, the pepperoni was both sweet and spicy, and the dough had a wonderful chew to it. It was just a damn good pizza; right to the top the list. Wow, how things have changed...

We were in Maine last weekend for the Greater Bridgton Brewers Festival. The weather was perfect for the first weekend of fall. It was sunny and hot with a refreshing breeze. Great beer drinking weather. (I say that a lot) The festival was a short walk from Kris' parents house on Sebago Lake. So, we all could drink and no one had to drive anywhere. We sampled the different beers, talked about them, and really enjoyed the day. After we ran out of beer tickets we walked back to Kris' parents house and continued the party. It was a great day. But, the whole time all I could think about was pizza. Because I knew we were stopping at the Gas Light Sunday afternoon on the way home.

We entered the Gas Light a little after 1:00 Sunday afternoon and sat at the bar.

"Hey guys" the bartender said "something to drink?"

Since I drank a few too many beers the night before, "I'll have a Jack and Coke." And Kris ordered a Coke.

"Are you both doing the Buffet?"

"Buffet? No. We're getting a pizza." I said

"It's an all you can eat pizza buffet." He said.

I should have trusted my gut feeling right there and walked out . A pizza buffet? Really?

"It's $6 each and all you can eat." He continued.

"No thanks. We'll have a large pepperoni with ricotta please."

"Oh...okay." The bartender said as if we were crazy.

We waited, still hoping for a great pizza to arrive. When the pie showed up, we knew right away. It was not going to be special. The outer crust was pale and the whole pizza looked as if it was not cooked enough. After eating a slice I knew it was not just undercooked. It was flawed by design. The fresh tomato wasn't there, the slight sourdough crust was replaced by a flavorless dough, and the pepperoni was now clearly of lesser quality. This pizza was perfect for a pizza buffet. It would be just fine for a Tuesday night delivery. But, it's nothing special. It was kind of sad. We looked forward to an awesome pizza; and we drove by some great restaurants to get there. I believe a trip to Santarpio's is in our immediate future.